#AudioBookReview ‘One Of Your Own-The Life And Death of Myra Hindley ‘ by Carol Ann Lee

About the book…

On 15 November 2002, Myra Hindley died in prison, one of the few women in the UK whose crimes were deemed so indefensible that ‘life’ really did mean ‘life’. Without a doubt Britain’s most notorious murderess, her death has done nothing to diminish the shadow she casts across our collective consciousness. This book presents a study of Hindley.

A brilliant book about an unforgivable evil, I listened to ‘One Of Your Own’ on Audible as a part of the Audible Plus membership scheme. I am not a true crime fan or afficionado so please forgive my ignorance, this review is purely based on what I heard. The narration, by Maggie Nash, is quite something, she manages to separate the voices and bring an element of humanity to what could have just been a straight forward reading of this non-fiction examination of the Moors Murders, in the wake of Myra Hindley’s death.

It begins with that seminal event, detailing the lengths at which the prison authorities had to go to find a funeral home, undertaker and church willing to take her remains, the secrecy under which she was buried and also the disposal of her estate. It is a chilling beginning, I was someone who grew up in post Moors Murders UK and Hindley and Brady were used as boogeymen to kids going out to play, as we did in the 70’s and 80’s, without watches, without access to phones, and exhorted to ‘come back when the sun goes down and don’t get into trouble!’

Laying out her last moments, it really makes you think about the legacy of this woman and the crimes she was committed for, as well as the nagging suspicion that there were others, let alone the boy who is still buried on the Moors, Keith Bennett, a name engraved into the public conscious.

What struck me was that Carol Ann Lee lays out the previous books on Hindley, about her and Brady, and holds them to scrutiny without being derogatory or rude. She is not presenting this as a definitive history, she is showing that even with full access to families, personal papers, court documents and witness reports, there is still room for more exploration into a case which haunts us, a case which along with the very worst crimes (Jamie Bulger, the Mary Bell killings) stains the national mindset and haunts dreams, those cold, emotionless eyes have become an iconic image of remorseless evil.

So , it returns to the old chestnut-was it nature or nurture that made Myra do what she did?

An indepth exploration of Hindley’s upbringing shows no real hardship or traumatic event on which to pin her decision to assist and engage in the abduction, murder and burial of at least 4 children on the Yorkshire Moors, and 1 murder of a teen in her home.

It was no better or worse than any growing up in a close knit family unit, where everyone knew each other and people survived any way they could. Closely packed homes on closely packed streets meant that there was very little you didn’t know about your neighbours, and very few secrets which could be kept.

Her relationship with Brady seems to be one in which both were equally responsible for their lack of satisfaction with the vagaries of post war life, and they appear to spur each other on to talk about fascism, their general hatred of the general populace and an increasingly violent sexual aspect of their pairing.

I don’t want to dwell on the horrific nature of the murders which she at the very least facilitated, and at worst was actively involved in, because as bad as the trauma is to listen to , it will never leave the families of the victims. The facts have established that Myra was the one who convinced children to go with her into Brady’s vehicle, she would buy wigs to hide her distinctive hair, was heard very clearly on cassettes of the torture of Lesley Anne Downey,and was positively identified by her brother in law when Brady and Hindley tried to coerce him into murdering Edward Evans.

She has , from her own letters and from testimonies, tried to say that she was coerced into doing these things for fear of her life from Brady, something which could never really be established as Brady (if I am remembering correctly) would not implicate her and would not confess. This gives the impression that he really loved her, whatever that means to a person like he was.

This was what she used to leverage a huge campaign to get her released from prison, receiving the backing of high profile supporters such as Lord Longford, claiming that not only was she not involved , not a murderer, and not the person she was back then. She then proceeded to continue to barter for release till she died, claiming remorse, repentance and a commitment to the Catholic Church as though this was a proviso to not being a liar.

What we seem to struggle with, when it comes to Myra, is that she is a woman, and there are 2 possible explanations for her behaviour-that she was coerced into it by a more powerful male thus supporting the notion that the patriarchal society is ultimately at fault, or that she is purely evil and resists the patriarchal construct to be a woman, to have that maternal instinct, to want to preserve not to destroy life. It is easier, in a way, to maintain that she is evil, an abomination, something unexpected and out of the norm because once you start thinking that there could be more like her, your mind goes to some very, very dark places.

Is evil a spectrum? Once you have committed an evil act, can you ever repay that debt to society in any way , shape or form? Is this proof positive that locking someone away, for life to mean life, means that the hope of prison reform is never truly possible, thereby undermining the entire process of justice? Was society, in a way, cheated because the death penalty had been scrapped just before the Moors Murderers were caught?

Her crimes , the ones we know of, are despicable, and in the midst of this , we should be striving to keep the names of their victims utmost in our minds. The testimonies of the relatives of these children is what is brought forward, the unending searches by police, and general public members is heartening as it is heart-breaking because it feels that these children’s faces should be what we recall, not the infamous mug shots.

There are so many small details which break you over and over again, it is a really gruelling listen and yet, you can feel that Carol Lee is not just rehashing what we feel are given as ‘facts’ as the case has, and probably will, never be forgotten. She raises the voices of the parents, the siblings who felt survivors guilt and whose childhoods were forever changed. The police who relentlessly searched to bring those children home. The man who dressed as the local baker to gain access to Brady and Hindley’s house after David Smith had run to the police , having witnessed Edward’s murder which they had tried to trick him into being a part of. The effect on Hindley’s mother who never gave up supporting her daughter-how could you even begin to process this? The only way, I’d imagine, is to deny, deny, deny because the truth is something I don’t believe a parent could ever live with. That you had raised a monster, hidden in plain sight.

I finished the book, resolutely determined that Hindley was, and likely remains to be, one of the most evil people who ever lived, with no sense of remorse for anyone but herself. I admire the dedication and relentless drive of Carol Ann Lee to make this about the victims, not the killers, to strive for, and maintain their dignity in being forever linked to the most heinous of crimes. For, in Hindley’s own words, she was ‘One Of Your Own’, but in her attempt to make society culpable by ownership, what I feel she has done is expose herself as a viper in the nest, she has committed the worst of crimes under the guise of being just another Northern lass, and as such, has no understanding of the community she robbed of peaceful sleep, and which she continues to do even after her death.

About the author…

Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, in 1969, Carol Ann Lee graduated from Manchester University. Three years later, her first book, Roses from the Earth: The Biography of Anne Frank was published to great acclaim, and has been published in fifteen countries to date. She went on to write several more best-selling books, including biographies and fiction, returning to non-fiction in 2010 with One of Your Own: The Life and Death of Myra Hindley, A Fine Day for a Hanging (2012) and The Murders at White House Farm (2015).